WELCOME TO THE CONSERVATION ATLAS BLOG!

This is where we're writing about beautiful wild places from around the world and about the people working to protect them. Between 2017-2018, we're posting from Panama, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, USA, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Romania, Kazakhstan and Scotland. Our goal is to inspire travelers to responsibly visit protected areas and become partners for conservation.

ROMANIA

SCOTLAND

On a land destined to be logged, some of the most pristine valdivian temperate forests are now protected by this Nature Conservancy reserve. With its rugged coasts, ancient trees, impressive sand dunes, and local culture, it is a beautiful place to explore. Interview with Liliana Pezoa, administrator of the reserve.

Over the last few decades, a major effort has been in the works to create one of the world’s greatest natural wonders: a connected system of national parks through one of the planet’s great wildernesses. Chile’s Route of Parks, or Ruta de los Parques, will create a chain of 17 national parks, crossing 1,500 miles of Chile, from the northern Valdivian temperate rainforests of Patagonia, to the windswept southern reaches of the continent.

On the western coast of the Island of Chiloé lies a privately protected area of 1,120 ha (2,768 acres), which is a lesson on the power that a handful of determined individuals have to produce change. An interview with Gonzalo Pineda, Director of the Ahuenco Park.

It is often the jaw-dropping mountains, untouched fiords, hanging glaciers, and pristine forests that bring us to the remote land of Chilean Patagonia; but the wildlife that lives here can be just as impressive.

Tantauco Park is a large-scale private conservation initiative, protecting 118,000 ha of wilderness at the southern tip of the Island of Chiloé. Hiking here was one of the biggest adventures we've had in Chilean Patagonia, as we went accompanied by a massive storm rushing through the island. An interview with Alan Bannister, General Manager of Tantauco.

Tantauco Park, or Parque Tantauco, is a well-built, well-managed conservation project that is working hard to protect and restore the extremely rare Guaitecas cypress and its ecosystem. For visitors, the park hosts over 130 km of well-built trails, as well as domes, a lodge and backcountry cabins. A description of the hike through this beautiful park.

"The quality of the products is, therefore, incomparable. Every lettuce, every carrot grows at its full potential and the nutritional value is at its highest". A lesson on sustainable living and mindful food production from Francisco Vio, head gardener in the Patagonia Park.

"A person that leaves here inspired has the potential to inspire more people. Therefore, the best way to inspire is to surround yourself with beauty". Interview with Johanna Zajc, lodge and restaurant administrator of the Patagonia Park.

Interview with Alejandra Saavedra, park warden and coordinator of the Darwin's Rhea breeding center in the Patagonia Park, and with Cristián Saucedo, Director of Wildlife Conservation for Conservacion Patagonica.

“We created the space needed for the recuperation of native species. It gave them the chance to repopulate the space they had lost with the arrival of livestock." Interview with Conservacion Patagonica's Director of Conservation, Cristián Saucedo Gálvez.

"In a way, I didn’t create the level of difficulty; it was made by Patagonia itself." Interview with Stjepan Pavicic, the mind behind the Ultra Fiord and other iconic adventure races in Chilean Patagonia, mixed with the description of our own experience backpacking on an amazing portion of the route.

Staring at these microscopic organisms for days, I found them to be creators of complex beauty, geometry and art. Discovering the diversity of shapes and colors, their juxtaposition, their patterns and textures was always a surprise.

In Spanish “paciencia” means patience. It was a first taste of Tierra del Fuego. If Patagonia itself is a challenge, its southern regions raise the bar even higher. And with that come incredible rewards.

For those that make the journey, their patience will be rewarded with incredible views of the Darwin Range, rare sightings of Fuegian biodiversity, and vivid emotions that might only be found in the remaining wildernesses of the world.

"It’s the ultimate goal of the park: for it to be more than a visiting site, to be a place of more meaningful experiences." Interview with Daniela Droguett, manager of the regional office of WCS Chile in Punta Arenas.

I’m not a hiker, really. My story of summiting a peak ended with a lousy failure, right here in Patagonia, four years ago. It was this obscure mountain, Tarn they call it, which like every other place so far seems to have a connection with Charles Darwin if one searches for it on Google.